


in the middle of the ride

by jaekyu



Series: the boys of summer [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beaches, First Kiss, Getting Together, Graffiti, Infidelity, M/M, Making Out, Mark Lee & Suh Youngho | Johnny Are Best Friends, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Shotgunning, Skateboarding, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Summer Romance, Underage Drinking, like y'know all that shit that comes with debauched sweaty summer lovin' fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25023481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: it just takes some time —The worst part of summer is that it only ever lasts three months. Mark and Yukhei, Venice Beach while it sizzles, and other misadventures.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: the boys of summer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803700
Comments: 31
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> remember when i wrote [salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202477) and could not believe i had written an nct skateboarding au that was also 14k? well, i wrote a sequel. this one is 20k. lmao.
> 
> i don't think that sss is 100% required reading to understand and/or enjoy this fic but it, of course, offers some context that you may lack if you don't read it first. but like. it's up to you, man. that's a lot of fic. in the timeline this fic takes place three years after sss. mark and johnny were seventeen and twenty-one, respectively, in sss and they are (almost) twenty and twenty-four in this one.
> 
>  **warnings** : the recreational drug use tag is mostly for weed. and, like, they smoke a lot of weed. which is why this has an m rating. the drug use is frequent. i also briefly mention mushrooms (and the consuming of them) in passing. for the record, there is zero sexual content in this fic, not even implied, but the main pair do have a discussion about limits.
> 
> lastly, thank god my beta, [alex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordboys) ♡ who let me ramble about w/e when i needed it and caught all the dumb mistakes i made because i wasn't paying attention but also who enriched this fic in like. so many ways.

_ do you remember how when you were younger _  
_ the summers all lasted forever? _  
**— DO YOU REMEMBER (FT. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE), Chance The Rapper**

'cause on the surface the city lights shine / they're calling at me, "come and find your kind"  
sometimes I wonder if the world's so small / that we can never get away from the sprawl  
**— ARCADE FIRE**

*****

_**June.** _

Mark meets Yukhei at a party.

It’s one of those early June parties they throw at the Nakamoto's surf shop when Yuta’s parents visit Japan. Yuta’s turned the lights a hazy mix of reds and purples, glassine paper affixed over the bulbs so the gleam casts these weird too-dark but not quite dark enough shadows. Jaehyun’s the one playing music and he’s playing “SUGAR” by BROCKHAMPTON. There’s these little plastic fish caught in fake nets with beady, unblinking eyes that follow you around the room. There’s an old-timey scuba suit set up in one corner, old and brassy and turning a little green. If you get close enough you can see your reflection in it.

The ambiance feels grown from the very fabric of the room itself, feels woven into it through the clouds of vape and weed smoke and it gives Mark pause — has he slipped into some weird parallel dimension?

No. He’s probably just kind of fucked up.

The last one of these parties, the summer before this one, Mark did mushrooms on the ratty couch in the back room. The couch had felt nice, at first: soft and worn but maybe a little musty. But then he had ended up crying when he thought all the surfboards on display had grown arms and legs and become sentient, and then he had thrown up on a display of wetsuits.

Mark hasn’t done any mushrooms tonight. At some point, someone’s joint somehow got passed to him, and he took hits off that and is now halfway finished with a second cup of sickly sweet pink wine that he stole from under his mom’s bed — it kind of tastes like cough syrup.

Mark’s a little buzzed, is what he’s trying to say. Not bone deep, not just yet, but definitely beneath the skin. A buzz that makes Mark’s heartbeat feel slowed and his limbs feel attached to weights.

The Nakamotos have this high-armed, deep seated, cushioned chair in the back room too. Mark’s sunk far down into it, content. He watches Taeyong and Johnny share the couch, share the same forty of OE800, share each other’s space. Mark wonders when they’ll move past this: this phase where they pretend like this is only just beginning, between them, and like it hasn’t been happening for years.

Ten walks in sometime around midnight; and on his heels is Yukhei.

Only Mark does not know he is Yukhei yet. All Mark knows is that Ten is back in Venice Beach for the summer. He’s left New York — a fresh graduate, working two jobs and living in a shitty studio apartment — and he came _home_ and god, it feels nice to see a familiar Ten amongst all these familiar backgrounds. All Mark knows is that when Ten came back he brought a friend with him, an undergrad who’s still at NYU. He doesn’t know — not yet — that this is Yukhei. All he knows, from looking, is the slope of Yukhei’s bangs into his face, the way his eyes shine as they flit across a new room filled with new faces. All Mark knows is the structure of Yukhei’s jaw into his collarbones into his shoulders, the soft pillow of his mouth, the way his body cuts and curves in his clothes.

And then Ten says, “everyone,” he says, “this is Yukhei,” and then Mark knows that this is Yukhei. And that’s good, that’s fine, but now even though Mark knows that this is Yukhei, he still knows all those other things he noticed before that, and that — that is when things start to get complicated.

Yukhei doesn’t skate. He spends time at the skatepark with all of them anyway.

It is burning hot outside, heat radiating off the pavement in waves you swear you can see. A bead of sweat drips from Mark’s hairline to his neck and down, down the column of his spine. He thinks, not for the first time, that he should have cut his hair before summer hit.

Yukhei watches. He’s bad at being subtle about that, the way he watches people and the people he picks to watch. Maybe it’s the shape of his eyes that project it outwards so openly, that suggest their probable truths to anyone willing to look. Maybe it’s the shape of Yukhei’s eyes that betray him, and do so without Yukhei really knowing how to stop them.

This is where they speak for the first time, Mark and Yukhei, after Mark peels off his sweat-wet shirt and tucks it between his belt and waistband, and sits on the concrete curb next to Yukhei.

“Mark, right?” Yukhei says first, offering conversation much like you’d offer an open palm to shake to someone you’ve just met.

Mark nods. He fumbles for Johnny’s water bottle, leaning up against the fence behind them and gone lukewarm from the sun, and he watches Johnny as he manages to catch Taeyong as he stumbles off the rail after a botched landing. The water isn’t cold, not anymore, but it still feels good for Mark to upturn the bottle over his head.

“It’s hot as fuck out here,” Mark says in explanation, shaking his hair out. A few stray droplets probably hit Yukhei when he does it. Yukhei doesn’t say anything. “Holding up okay, East Coaster?”

Yukhei’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “It’s hotter than New York,” he admits. “That’s for sure.”

They lull into easy conversation. Mark’s never met anyone from New York. He had thought, maybe, between the way Yukhei’s expression would sometimes turn harsh, and the innate intimidation of meeting someone from a walk of life you’ve never been subjected too, that Yukhei might be harder to talk to. Harder to relate with. Mark’s always had the same group of friends — he found them, all on his own, during a moment in his life where he had never felt more lost, and he’s refused to let go of them since — and they’ve all gone through the same things together. Things start to get tricky when you introduce variables. There are so many outcomes to theorize, so many things to consider that you may not even realize need to be considered in the first place.

But Yukhei is nice and he is interesting and he reminds Mark of his friends. He tells Mark about his major and how he met Ten, what Central Park looks like in the summer compared to in the winter, and his favourite place to buy red bean buns. In return, Mark tells Yukhei about his shitty job making pizza at _Gherardo’s_ , about how long he’s been skateboarding for. Mark tells Yukhei about the coast. The way you can taste the salt of the ocean even when you’re just sitting on the sand, and how every summer day sort of melts together the way neapolitan ice cream might, because of the heat.

“Have you been around much?” Mark asks, “seen the sights?”

Yukhei shakes his head. “I don’t know anyone else out here,” he tells Mark, “so I only ever hang out with Ten. Which is fine, obviously, but Ten only really wants to hang out with you guys. Not like I blame him. I don’t mind — obviously, I don’t mind — but I haven’t been around to see much.”

“I can take you,” Mark offers. It comes out of his mouth before his brain can even really consider what making that offer really means.

Maybe Mark shouldn’t have offered. He and Yukhei don’t even really know each other. But Mark noticed Yukhei, as soon as he stepped into Yuta’s party that day Mark noticed him, and Mark has kept on noticing Yukhei and new things about him ever since.

Then, Yukhei smiles, wide and open the way his eyes are; Mark decides it was a good idea for him to offer after all.

Mark and Yukhei slip easily from strangers to friends.

Ten is eager to have Mark take Yukhei off his hands. Not in a bad way, really, he had just been hoping Yukhei might make some new friends. Mark is sure he appreciates the alone time even if Ten won’t say it.

(Sometimes, Mark thinks, it’s not even alone time. It’s time spent with Jaehyun. And Mark thinks there’s something there, something no one is being told about, but he doesn’t press. He’s been through this once before, with Johnny and Taeyong, and he knows where to keep his nose.)

Mark takes Yukhei to see street art. He points out to Yukhei his favourite and least favourite ones. They go to Abbot Kinney Boulevard and the Canal Walkways. Yukhei likes the Boardwalk, and Mark knows it’s because he likes to people-watch so much without Yukhei having to tell him, so they spend a lot of time there just the two of them. Yukhei wears this mangled pair of wayfarer sunglasses and black khaki shorts and a Lakers shirt he definitely just bought at Urban Outfitters before he came to California. Mark could care less. The ocean and air and wind make Yukhei’s hair a mess and he smiles like someone’s plucked the sun right out of the sky and made him swallow it. Mark scrounges up tips from work to buy them paper cups filled with french fries, or huge mounds of shaved iced bathed in too-bright blue and red syrup that they share.

They’re halfway through one of them when Yukhei asks Mark, “what do you usually do? Like, on a standard day for you.”

“What do you mean?”

They’re sitting on the beach, just below the pier. The rocks block some of the noise from all the people around, and offer snatches of shade as the sun moves across the sky. Yukhei is sitting with his knees bent and legs half pulled up to his chest, and his shorts have fallen a little further up his leg than they might usually sit. It exposes a bit of extra skin that is usually hidden and Mark can see the way Yukhei has started to turn a little more golden, that tell-tale harsh line from tanned skin to pale skin left untouched by the sun.

“I mean,” while he speaks Mark notices just how red Yukhei’s mouth has been stained from the shaved iced, and tries not to think about how cold and sweet it might be inside of it. “I’m sure you don’t do all this tourist-y shit on the regular. I appreciate you doing it for me, but you must usually do other stuff?”

Mark shrugs. “I come to the Boardwalk enough.”

“Tomorrow,” Yukhei insists, “tomorrow let’s just do whatever you normally do.”

Mark tries not to be embarrassed about how mundane his life is.

His next day off he meets Yukhei at Johnny and Taeyong’s apartment, where every night Ten takes the couch and Yukhei takes the floor, and says lamely, “we’re gonna go skate for a bit, if that’s okay?”

“I’ll do whatever you wanna do, Mark.”

Today, Yukhei is wearing a baby blue button-down that matches the colour of the sky. Mark sometimes feels underdressed around him, in his constant uniform of jean shorts and graphic t-shirts.

They go to the skatepark. Mark spends thirty minutes trying to dissect what an ollie is for Yukhei, because Yukhei asked, and then Mark tells him he’s goofy-footed and he’s not gonna be the best person to learn something like this from, because Yukhei probably isn’t.

Yukhei looks at Mark like he’s accidentally been speaking Korean this entire time.

“Goofy-footed?”

“Right foot forward,” Mark explains. “Most people skate with their left foot forward.”

“How do you figure that out?”

At this point, Ten and Jaehyun have joined them. They wave at Mark and Yukhei from the other side of the bowl, and then Jaehyun drops in and they’re not paying attention to them anymore.

“Just —” Mark starts, then stops, then makes an executive decision. “Stand up,” he says.

Yukhei offers him an owlish look of confusion, tilting his head. Mark gestures with his hands, as if he’s lifting Yukhei off his ass himself, and repeats, “up, up, up.”

When Yukhei is finally standing before him, Mark drops his board in front of him. “Get on,” he says, point-blank.

Yukhei looks down at the skateboard at his feet, then back up at Mark.

“I have never even played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.”

“You know who Tony Hawk is, though,” Mark counters, “so that’s a start.”

“Everyone knows who Tony Hawk is.”

“Get on the board, Yukhei.”

Eventually, Yukhei relents. He steps onto Mark’s board, legs like a freshly born calf. It’s comical — the lift of the board gives Yukhei an extra few inches, as if he isn’t tall enough already — to see someone so big and broad and otherwise sturdy and sure-footed, suddenly nervous to have Mark’s trucks and wheels between him and the solid ground.

“I’m gonna fall,” Yukhei says. He doesn’t sound worried. He sounds resigned to fate.

“You won’t fall.”

And that’s almost a lie, because right after Mark says it the skateboard shifts under Yukhei’s inexperienced stance, he’s flailing his arms and is _literally_ about to eat dirt, but Mark catches him. So, he doesn’t fall, and Mark didn’t lie to him when he said he wouldn’t.

Only now, when Yukhei steadies, Mark realizes he’s holding both of Yukhei’s hands in each one of his. Like, fingers interlocked and everything. They’re warm, but not clammy, and soft. Mark knows his own hands are a mess of scars and calluses. From this close, Mark can smell what he assumes to be Yukhei’s aftershave, spiced and woody. Someone hits the pause button on the world for a second; it’s just Mark and Yukhei, Mark in Yukhei’s space and holding his hands for one glorious, preserved-in-amber moment. And then someone is taking a hammer and smashing them out of it. Mark takes a single step backwards and drops one of Yukhei’s hands.

He keeps holding the other one. Just in case.

“Just go straight, for a little bit. Switch your foot if it feels weird.”

In the end, it turns out Yukhei likes it better with his right-foot forward.

“Another goofy-footed motherfucker,” Jaehyun admonishes, from the small audience of Mark’s friends that have collected after they noticed Yukhei on Mark’s board. “Taeyong rides goofy. Josh did too.”

Mark is gripping onto Yukhei’s hand again (just to keep him steady, just because Yukhei reached out for him, just because he’s nice, just because —) when Yukhei smiles at him and says, “just like you, too.”

Mark suddenly feels like he’s shoved a handful of gravel into his mouth: he doesn’t know what to say.

They all end up at the In-N-Out.

Ten pushes two tables together for them to sit at. They’ve seemingly gathered more and more people through osmosis throughout the day: Ten and Jaehyun had showed up to skate and, eventually, so did Johnny and Doyoung, and just as the sun was starting to set Yuta and Taeyong pulled up in Taeyong’s car after work. They had even encountered and gathered up Jungwoo along the way and that’s kind of crazy, kind of, like, divine intervention. Because they haven’t seen Jungwoo much since he moved a little ways out of Venice and switched schools.

Yukhei has never been to In-N-Out, so he asks Mark to order for him.

“I think we have similar sensibilities, is all,” Yukhei explains, needling Mark in the ribs with his elbow.

“I will not be making all your decisions for you now just because we’re both goofy,” Mark responds, playfully shoving Yukhei’s arms away from him. “Ask Taeyong next time.”

Mark doesn’t really mean it. If Yukhei wanted to ask Mark to pick something for him again Mark would allow himself to be asked. Welcome it, appreciate it, revel in it.

They pile a small mountain of napkins into the centre of their joined tables and then take turns half-opening their straws so they can use them to blow the wrappers at each other. Everyone eats like they’re starving — from a day spent baking in the sun, or a day at work — and both tables get messy with trash and smears of sauce.

Yukhei sits next to Mark. Their legs keep bumping under the table. Sometimes Mark does it on purpose and sometimes it is an accident and, a few times, Mark lets himself think that it might be Yukhei doing it on purpose.

“There’s one more thing I usually do on a regular day,” Mark tells Yukhei.

Most of Venice is already covered in street art, whether commissioned on purpose or guerilla operations executed by other locals like Mark. But there’s this one recently abandoned building halfway between Mark’s house and his job, and it’s got this big brick wall with no windows, painted grey, and that’s where Mark always goes.

He keeps the backpack he uses stuffed under his bed, away from his mom. He’s got these little outdoor battery-powered spotlights in it, along with a collection of spray paint cans, and a face mask he uses half to protect his lungs, and half to keep people from recognizing him.

There are no larger pieces on the wall yet. Mark hasn’t decided what he wants to take up a big space on the wall, so it’s mostly just little paintings scattered near the edges. A bright yellow bee wearing sunglasses and waving a white flag, big bright pink bubble letters that fade into sunset orange and then into pineapple yellow, spelling out _ADULTS SUCK, THEN YOU ARE ONE_ , a bastardized version of Bart Simpson, wearing a bucket hat that says _COOL_ with a tab of acid on his tongue, and eyes swimming with the bright neon colours you find in TV static.

They’re all pretty dumb and inconsquential. Just Mark flexing creative muscles. But Yukhei looks at him with something akin to wonder, examining carefully, and it’s almost enough to have Mark considering maybe giving himself a little more credit.

“You did all of these?” Yukhei asks. He touches the fat black line that circles the O in the word _COOL_.

“They’re whatever,” Mark shrugs.

Yukhei shakes his head. “They’re good, Mark. They’re really cool.”

Mark knows Yukhei’s words make him blush, can feel the way his face heats up, and he is thankful for the darkness that will keep Yukhei from noticing. He rubs his left arm gingerly with his right hand. “Yeah, well, I’m hoping inspiration for a big piece will strike soon. Something to put in the middle.”

Yukhei turns away from Mark’s spray paintings to look at him. “Can you send me pictures of it, when I go back to New York?”

And it’s dark, but Mark can still tell, still can see even in the inky black of the night, that Yukhei has that little shine in his eye. Like the first time he showed up at Yuta’s party, following behind Ten. Like he’s discovering something new.

“Sure,” Mark says, a little sad, maybe, to be reminded that Yukhei is only here for the summer. Then he says, “I brought some weed. Do you wanna get high?”

The roughness of the brick digs into Mark’s bare arms where he leans against it. Yukhei sits next to him, finishing the last of the weed, and they are pressed together at the hip, the thigh, the knee, and the foot. They have one of Mark’s little spot lights illuminated on the gravel, a sort of blue-ish glow creeping up between the two of them. Yukhei’s features look different when he’s lit from underneath — not bad, just different. Like he could be a slightly different version of himself, like this could be a Yukhei from a different timeline.

Mark isn’t sure what time it is. He can’t see the moon: it’s probably hidden behind something, but he can see some stars.

It’s quiet here, in a way Venice Beach almost never is. There’s always people, or cars, or the sounds of the ocean. And maybe it’s because he’s high, his senses dulled, but Mark can’t hear any of that. All he can hear is his own breathing, and the way Yukhei’s own breathing fills the spaces between.

Somewhere between the last puff of smoke and speaking, Yukhei puts his head on Mark’s shoulder. Mark adds it to the list of places they are making direct contact, and tries not to focus on it too much beyond that. As if the act of counting something like that, of adding it to a list that already exists in his head, isn’t already thinking about it too much.

Yukhei must get touchy when he gets high, because then he puts his hand on Mark’s thigh. It doesn’t feel weird, except for that it kind of feels weird because Mark feels a little shrunk inside his own skin. But it’s not weird in any other way.

Whatever. Mark’s just high. They both are.

“Mark,” Yukhei says, and he says it like Mark won’t already be listening to him. Like Mark would be listening to anything else. “Mark, hey, I wanna tell you something. It’s, like, hella important.”

 _Hella_ , god, Yukhei hangs out with Ten too much.

“What is it?” Mark asks.

Mark makes this realization before Yukhei answers: that this is one of those summer nights that will spread into the cracks of his brain and solidify, and become one of those vivid memories you have of a smaller snatch of a longer timeline you don’t remember nearly as well. The same way Mark remembers a very specific gas station on a long car ride, but not where they came from or where they were going. The way he remembers what snacks Josh would always sneak into the movie theatre when they would go, desperate for some respite from the heat, for two hours of air conditioning, but he struggles to remember Josh in a way that feels more total.

Mark realizes: this moment will stick. What else will stick with it, he’s not sure.

“Mark,” Yukhei says again and Mark realizes he’s sitting in front of Mark now, looking at him in the eyes. “Are you listening?”

Mark wets his lips, nods. Sees Yukhei’s eyes flick down, for a split second, or maybe Mark just imagined all of that. It’s dark. It’s dark and he’s high. Under those circumstances, he could see a lot of things not-quite exactly right.

Yukhei seems to consider something, for a little while. Mark doesn’t say anything. He makes sure Yukhei knows he’s still listening by keeping eye contact. By bouncing his finger against the knuckles of the hand Yukhei has somehow ended up cupping over Mark’s bare knee. His knee, which is mangled from skating accidents, skin torn up and grown over again and again.

Then, Yukhei finally says, “I’m really glad I met you, Mark. For real.”

Mark swallows. “Me too, Yukhei,” he replies. “Me too.”

It is evident to everyone else before it is evident to Mark.

He’s in Jaehyun’s apartment with Johnny when Johnny first brings it up. They’re playing Mario Party and it’s stuffy hot even with all the windows open. Jaehyun lives in this tiny studio, so there’s no furniture. He and Johnny share spots side by side on the frameless bed and Mark sits on a pillow on the floor next to them.

They’ve had half an edible each, even though Mark has a shift in four hours.

“You and Yukhei really hang out a lot, huh?” Johnny asks, watching Jaehyun roll a three and promptly land on a Bowser space. “You like him?”

“Hmm?” Mark hums, brain fuzzy. “Yeah, he’s cool. I hope he comes back to visit after this summer. To see everyone.”

On the TV, Mark rolls a two and lands on a red space. Yoshi shakes his head in despair as Mark loses three coins.

“Yeah,” Johnny sounds incredulous. “Everyone,” he imitates Mark, but the tone is all different.

From his spot next to Johnny, Jaehyun jabs his elbow into Johnny’s ribs and says, “pot, meet kettle.”

Mark isn’t sure what he means. His mouth feels dry. He wonders if, maybe, Jaehyun might have some juice in his fridge. God, he’s going to eat like, three pieces of pizza before he starts work today. And then, they’re about to start a minigame, and Mark’s already losing, so he promptly — and blessedly, for the sake of his future self’s sober state of mind — forgets about everything that’s just happened.

Mark has never realized how often he and his friends just hit repeat on the same day over and over until Yukhei started hanging around.

Every day is a cycle that comes back around again and again; they go to the skatepark and they ride around for a few hours, and then maybe they go to the convenience store for junk food and Gatorade, or maybe they go to the Boardwalk for a change of scenery. Sometimes they’ll go to the shop to visit Yuta and Taeyong at work, or Mark will have to bail on everyone for his shift at _Gherardo’s_. Otherwise, they’ll find somewhere to eat, or Taeyong will make them all dinner like he’s their mom if he has the time, or Mark will go home and eat dinner with his own mother like she asked him. And maybe they’ll squeeze out a few extra hours of daylight skateboarding, or they might not have time, but they’ll usually get high and end up at the Nakamoto surf shop. And the night will proceed in varying shades of relaxed to rowdy, depending on a lot of things, and then it’ll be the next day before they go home.

Mark’s not complaining. Not really. He’s been at this routine since he was thirteen, he wouldn’t keep at it if he didn’t like it. Now, though, with Yukhei around the mundanity of it all is apparent.

Mark is determined to shake things up.

They’re on the patio of their favourite taco place that doesn’t card — it’s Mark, Jaehyun, Doyoung, Ten and Yukhei. Yukhei has got the huge toxic waste bright green margarita sitting in front of him because he has no self-control, apparently.

Mark smothers a tortilla chip in guacamole and inhales it. “When was the last time we went swimming?” He asks the table, mouth full.

It’s not something they usually work into their schedule. Beaches in Venice get crowded, especially this time of year, and no one in their friend group has access to a pool. The last time Mark saw a pool it was an empty one, in a backyard of a house that foreclosed, and they had hopped the fence to skate it.

“Swallow before you start talking, Mark,” Ten chastises. “Or you’ll choke.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mark sees Jaehyun suddenly starts coughing and dribbles water out of his mouth when Ten says the word _swallow_.

Mark swallows dutifully. “Swimming,” he repeats, “ocean, big and salty and cold. We should go in it.”

Under the table, Yukhei’s foot presses against the length of Mark’s, both of them wearing slides. They’ve started to do this a lot: sit next to each other or across from each other and let the physicality of their legs act on instinct. Mark used to overthink it, used to try and categorize every specific light brush or purposeful press, but then he gave up. Now he just lets himself enjoy it.

“We should go,” Yukhei is the one who says it. When the table turns to look at him, he shrinks a little — he must be kind of tipsy off the margarita, Mark thinks, and now all of a sudden he’s being stared at. Yukhei continues, “I mean, if you guys are down?”

Doyoung lifts his gaze up, towards the blazing sun, whose rays stretch for miles, and the cloudless blue sky.

“It’s hot as fuck out today,” he rationalizes to the group of them, then shrugs, “might as well.”

It’s strange to see Yukhei standing, unassuming, in Mark’s room.

He’s never brought Yukhei to his house before — Mark still lives with his mom, and she’s a woman who works a lot and likes the quiet, so Mark never really brings any friends home — but Yukhei hadn’t packed any swim trunks, and Mark had offered to take him home and lend him a pair.

So here he is; in Mark’s room, wearing nothing but a pair of Mark’s swim trunks that, luckily, are little too big for him but, unluckily, a messy pattern of orange and green that looks like something a 90’s Nickelodeon host would throw up.

Admittedly, Yukhei looks fine in them. He knows Yukhei has his own preferred style, can tell just from the way he dresses himself day to day, by what he packed to come visit a different state, but after this — these ugly ass swim trunks — Mark is sure that Yukhei must look good in everything.

“I hate that you make that abomination of a swimsuit look hot,” Mark lets slip without even really thinking about it.

Yukhei smirks at him. He poses exaggeratedly with his hands on his hips. “You had doubts?”

Mark looks Yukhei up and down at Yukhei’s almost-invitation to do so. He doesn’t let his gaze linger too long, too nervous for it, but he takes in the major points of Yukhei’s body quickly. His skin is heavily bronzed now, soaked up full of sun and honey and warmth. His chest is a little lighter than his arms or legs, but it’s not really something you notice. What you do notice is the way Yukhei curves in at the waist. He goes from broad shoulders, to clipped in hips, back out to the wide breadth of his thighs. And okay. Okay, Mark’s gotta be honest here —

“I see the error of my ways now, Yukhei, and I apologize,” he admits, and Yukhei smiles.

It’s late evening by the time they’re at the beach. The sun has started to disappear beyond the horizon, casting the kind of sunset you’d want to paint. A melting pot of colours that are deep and rich, like a preschool drawer full of clay, or the half-healed bruises from a wipe out the week previous.

There is still enough light from the sun to make the ocean sparkle, glinting the way they draw it in cartoons, little stars made of reflected radiance. Everything else around them is bright blue, occasionally broken up by the white cap of a gentle wave. Everything smells like salt, out in the water like this. Not overwhelming, but constant. Like when you smell a fire someone has lit, late at night, through your bedroom window.

Mark has always preferred the grit of the ocean to the scrubbed clean feeling of chlorine.

They’ve picked a beach that’s not as pretty as some of the others in Venice. It keeps the tourists away, and the locals don’t care, and Mark doesn’t think Yukhei will care either. It allows them the freedom to be rowdy, to make fools of themselves, to splash and yell and curse at each other.

Yukhei won’t get in at first. Mark’s already dripping water from his hair and Yukhei is just standing there, letting the water lick at his hip bones, and gritting his teeth.

“Dude, you’re from New York. Aren’t you supposed to be used to the cold?”

“Not in late June, Mark!”

Mark laughs, and then he’s launching himself at Yukhei, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him under the water. Yukhei sputters when he resurfaces — wide, startled eyes and the mess of his hair against his forehead and in his eyes making him look like a cat that was just forced into the bath.

Again, Mark laughs and laughs. Then, Yukhei is launching himself at Mark in return and they devolve into a primitive play fight that kicks up saltwater above them and all the sand below. They both end up out of breath, shoulders heaving as they try and catch it.

As Mark watches Yukhei try and slow his breathing, he notices other things too. There’s this droplet of water that Mark follows his eyes. It travels from the hair just behind Yukhei’s ear, down across his neck and then collects in his collarbone, for just a moment, before it continues down his chest. It follows the lines of his muscles — around his pectorals, then down his abdomen, until disappears into the waistline of Yukhei’s swim shorts.

Well, Mark’s swim shorts, technically. That Yukhei is wearing.

When Mark’s eyes finish their slow traverse of Yukhei’s body, he finds Yukhei staring at him. But it’s not eye contact waiting for Mark. Not Yukhei’s big, open eyes meeting Mark’s own. No. Instead, Yukhei’s eyes are focused lower. For a second, Mark thinks something might be wrong but Yukhei does not look concerned, only focused.

And then Mark realizes — it’s his mouth. Yukhei is looking at his mouth.

Mark swallows. He feels heat build up under his skin, like it’s set into his very bones, despite all the cool water around him. The ocean roars in his ears. He knows his friends are around, somewhere, but he can’t remember where he last saw them, and he can’t hear them. Not over the roar in his ears that, really, is too loud to just be the ocean.

Mark reaches up to touch his own mouth. He is slow as he does it, raising his arm carefully. Then, he presses his thumb to the poutiest part of his bottom lip. It dips, slightly, under the pressure. Mark sees the sharp intake of breath Yukhei takes rather than hears it. It almost looks like he takes a punch to the ribs. Then, Mark is letting his lip slip out of the press of his thumb and it bounces back up into place.

Yukhei does meet his eyes, then. There is a very specific expression in them, Mark can tell — but he’s never seen it before and he doesn’t know quite what it means.

Mark bites his lip. The heat has spread to his face. He and Yukhei watch each other, still.

Then someone, probably Jaehyun, is calling both of their names out from shallower waters. His voice is like a knife that slices through the pulled-tight string coiled around Mark and Yukhei.

Mark shakes his head clear of its fog. “Coming,” he calls back, hands cupped over his mouth, and then he’s diving into the water to swim over to his friends, desperate for some relief from all this heat.

The weekend before Taeyong’s birthday, Jungwoo invites them out to San Diego for a visit.

They end up leaving at the ass-crack of dawn. It’s seven of them split among two vehicles: Johnny, Mark and Yukhei with Taeyong in his beat-up Hyundai Elantra and Jaehyun, Ten and Yuta in Jaehyun’s mom’s Honda Civic. Taeyong gets two Red Bulls in his system and can’t stop telling stories. He tells them about the time his parents took him to the Grand Canyon — like, they drove to the Grand Canyon at, like, 9PM so they could get there for sunrise.

“And it’s just a big fucking hole in the ground,” Taeyong explains. “Big fucking pit filled with nothing. I don’t know why we had to take it that seriously.”

It’s barely 6AM and if Mark was operating with a little more brain power right now, he might draw a parallel between Taeyong and his own parents here. But he’s not, so he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “your parents sound insane, bro.”

From his spot in the front seat, Taeyong shakes his head. “They are, man,” and beside him in the passenger seat, Johnny hums in agreement.

They stop for breakfast about an hour outside of Venice. They find this spooky-looking diner, the kind of place that feels oddly familiar, even though there’s no way you could have been there before. A place you might have half-dreamed. They order milkshakes and fries and they come in those red plastic baskets, soaking through waxy red and white checked paper. And no one cares that it’s 7AM and that this isn’t breakfast because time, and all of its constraints, feel kind of inconsequential right now.

It feels like nothing beyond this moment exists: they are coming from nowhere and they are going nowhere. They have only ever been the people they are right now. There is no before and there is no after. and tomorrow, the sun will rise on this exact same day. They never go to San Diego and they never go home. Those places no longer exist. All that exists is here and now, and in the haze of early morning — in this mostly empty diner, sticky plastic seats and yellowed rings of glasses stained onto the stucco tables — Mark can almost believe it. Can almost imagine the scenario where this stretch of time never ends and they never go home, and Yukhei never goes back to New York, and the rest of Mark’s life plays out in this loop.

It doesn’t last because it can’t.

But that’s okay. Mark has faith a world that keeps on turning will be better anyway.

San Diego reminds Mark of home in a lot of ways. In other ways it is the polar opposite.

Jungwoo takes them to Balboa Park, where they wander around the gardens and Johnny takes pictures. Yukhei seemingly picks a random sunflower amongst a field of hundreds, points it out to Mark and says, “that one looks like you,” and Mark just wrinkles his nose, endeared but confused.

They go to the harbor next, skateboards in hand, and gawk at all the ugly big boats and what they’d name them if they had one. It’s funny, at first, until Johnny says he’d name his boat _Taeyong_ with the most disgustingly sweet look in his eyes Mark’s ever seen. Mark jumps onto Johnny’s back to get him to stop, poking at his cheeks and head, and then makes Johnny carry him all the way back to the car.

Talking to Jungwoo again is nice. It’s been years since he moved out to San Diego from Venice Beach and he only ever comes back on occasion to visit his grandparents. Mark remembers when he used to hang around back then — they were both much younger, they must have been thirteen or fourteen, and then Jungwoo got out before all the proverbial shit hit the damn fan.

He’s a nice reminder of when things were a little more simple. Mark doesn’t dwell on it. Things are different, now, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad.

For lunch, they get California Burritos, because Jungwoo insists. Mark’s is, honest to god, the size of his forearm, filled with french fries and carne asada. They sit on the beach to eat them, lined up like ducklings, with their mouths full of food and dripping sauce down their chins. The beaches here are nicer than the ones in Venice — they’re kept up well, you can tell, and there's a lot more surfers.

Yukhei sticks his head out and looks down the line, squinting against the sun to see Yuta. “You surf,” he asks, though it’s not quite a question. He tacks on a _right?_ at the end for good measure.

“Like, not regularly,” Yuta replies. “Not in years. More when I lived in SF. No time anymore.”

Eventually, Jungwoo takes them to a skatepark. It feels kind of silly — they came all this way just to do the things they always do? But then Mark gets on his board, crouches low, and lets his fingers glide along the pavement below him as he moves amongst the obstacles around him and it feels so good. It always feels good.

Once, Yukhei had said to Mark, “you’ve been skating since forever, haven’t you?”

And Mark had said, “yeah,” even though it technically wasn’t true. Even though he was eleven when he met Johnny, when Johnny started to teach him. Mark can barely remember a time before he knew how to skateboard, before he did it every single day. Before it was the only thing in his life that could quiet a world around him that got louder and louder.

It’s late when they finally decided to head home.

The sun is long gone and San Diego’s light pollution keeps the stars from prominence. Mark feels bone-deep sleepiness; the kind that comes from a long day spent in the sun. He feels pleasantly warm in just his t-shirt and shorts, even as the temperature drops.

The ride home is quiet. Johnny plays Sufjan Stevens on a low-volume, barely loud enough to hear over just the sound of the car against the long road. He and Taeyong talk in hushed tones in the front seat and Mark thinks Johnny’s hand might be on Taeyong’s knee but he won’t ask.

In the back seat, Yukhei is hunched over, straining against his seat belt, and fast asleep against Mark’s shoulder.

It’s not uncomfortable. It’s kind of nice, actually. Yukhei’s hair smells like what must be his shampoo — mostly just fresh, with maybe a hint of citrus. He’s leaned up against Mark’s side, almost curled slightly around him, and the fabric of his shirt is soft against Mark’s bare arm. He seems almost small, sleeping quietly, making little noises in the back of his throat every so often, but Yukhei could never trick anyone into thinking he’s very small at all.

Brain sleep-addled, coloured at the edges by the fading of the two hits he took off of Ten’s weed pen, Mark lets his thoughts wander. They always circle back to Yukhei: what would Mark have done if he hadn’t been around for the summer? What if, for some reason, he decided to not come with Ten? What if Ten had not invited him? What if, even further back, somehow Ten and Yukhei had never met, never became friends? It’s strange, all the things that had to line up to make this specific reality the one that came to fruition, when Mark can’t imagine things happening any differently.

Yukhei’s hand bounces lightly against Mark’s leg, disturbed by the slight movements of the car as it speeds along. Afraid he might think about it too much, he does not think about it at all; he simply slides his hand into Yukhei’s and relishes when Yukhei’s hand tightens around his. He doesn’t think Yukhei is awake, or perhaps he is simply just snatching at the edges of consciousness — but he is not fully aware, Mark knows that. It doesn’t matter. It feels nice.

Mark allows his thumb to rub patterns over the back of Yukhei’s hand. Back, forth, then back again. Across one way, then perpendicular. Yukhei snuffles in his sleep, shifts slightly, then burrows his nose and cheek further into Mark’s shoulder.

Mark has only ever really liked one person. It was when he was still in high school. She was a girl in his grade, with long brown hair and delicate shoulders and small hands. She wasn’t popular, but she was nice to Mark, and she smelled good. Like some kind of berry, Mark remembers, but he doesn’t remember which one. He remembers how he used to feel just looking at the back of her head in class — a swirling mess of nervous and excited, stirring up in his belly until it almost made him want to throw up. Nothing really ended up happening; she kissed him, once, because her friend told her she should, and afterwards she blushed deep red and never spoke to Mark again.

The funny thing about all of this is: Mark’s feelings for Yukhei are similar and they are also not similar at all. There is that same mixture of nervousness and excitement, only the nerves are tempered. They serve only to enhance, make Mark alert, so he won’t miss anything. Yukhei is — well, he’s better than that girl from high school. He’s actually Mark’s friend. He likes to hang out with Mark and Mark likes to hang out with them in return. They laugh at each other and with each other. Yukhei picks food off of Mark’s plate and Mark trades it for sips of Yukhei’s soda. It’s better than the girl because it’s already sort of a relationship. They are not strangers. They have already existed around each other in meaningful ways.

Yukhei is Mark’s friend. Mark likes Yukhei.

And Mark — he kind of gets stuck on that last part. Half sleep-drunk, Yukhei’s palm pressed flush against his, his breath fanning out against Mark’s shoulder and chest, the occasional patch of exposed skin, Mark can’t stop thinking about that last part. _You like him_ , his brain hits rewind, play, rewind, play, over and over. Until Mark is hearing the word so often, echoed in his own head, that it stops sounding like a word at all. It starts to be more like a feeling. A little match lit in Mark’s heart, warming it. A little buzz in his ear. A little jolt of static shock that runs through the places he and Yukhei physically touch. It sounds less like a word and more like Mark’s heartbeat in his own ears thumping, thumping and thumping.

Oh, Mark thinks, and he clutches Yukhei’s hand a little tighter.

Oh. That’s something.

*

_**July.** _

It’s warm out tonight.

Someone has soaked a decrepit log in lighter fluid and watched it go up, white hot flame that has faded more orange the longer it’s burned. The new wood stacked on top of the pieces that had been turning to ash.

More people come to these beach parties than would ever come to Yuta’s parties. People Mark doesn’t know. People Mark is just meeting. It is simultaneously nerve-wracking and freeing; and where the night takes Mark will depend on where he falls on this scale.

For now, Mark upturns a can of Sprite and empties half of it onto the sand. Then he refills it with rum.

His friends are spread out amongst the rest of the party-goers. Only — no, Ten has seemingly disappeared and Mark can’t spot Jaehyun either. Mark hums against the lip of his can and files that way for later.

He wonders where Yukhei might be. Where did he end up? What’s he doing? Who is he talking to? Probably some pretty girl. Pretty girl with pretty dark eyes in a little top that shows off her midriff. She probably laughs at every little thing that Yukhei says to her. She’s got long hair, probably, something that Yukhei can wind a finger around the bottom of. Something he can slide his fingers into when he kisses her. Kiss her somewhere a little off from the party, where it’s quieter. And then they’ll kiss, of course she’d kiss him back, and then Yukhei will put his hands under her little top and she’ll have soft skin, and she’ll be small and shy next to Yukhei, and he’ll —

Mark shakes himself out of his reverie. He realizes how fast he is breathing. Where did that come from?

Mark takes another gulp of his drink and, slowly, lets the drink take him in return.

Mark is drunk.

Like, stumbling on his feet drunk, so he makes sure to sit down. Like, still aware enough to know he needs to not have a single other sip of alcohol, but loose-limbed enough to maybe make that mistake anyway. The sand is grainy and rough against Mark’s bare legs. He feels hot all over, like maybe he should go for a swim, but then he realizes it’s a deeper heat than that. In his bones, a thrumming, like the bass of the music.

Mark knows this song. It’s Anderson Paak; _if I get too high now, sugar, come on, I might never come down_.

This is how Yukhei finds Mark: drunk, sat in the sand.

Yukhei sits beside Mark without even asking.

“Where did you go?” Mark asks and he tries not to sound too put-out by it.

“All I wanted was to take a piss,” Yukhei responds. He always gets kind of rambly when he gets cross-faded, brain-to-mouth filter whittled down to absolute zero. “And then I saw some girls doing Whip-Its, and I’m _so_ not down for that, but these girls kept needling me about it? Anyway, Johnny saved me. Thank god for that. But then he wanted to smoke, so I said sure, and totally forgot about how I needed to piss. But, don’t worry, eventually I took a piss. I’m not about to piss on you, or anything. Unless you’re into that?”

Mark scrunches up his face. “No, thanks.”

“Cool. Me neither.”

Somewhere behind them, someone yells something unintelligible. Someone else proclaims they think they might be sick and someone else is yelling, trying to find their friend.

“Hey,” Yukhei nudges Mark’s shoulder with his own. “Wanna take a walk?”

Mark considers for a moment; does he have the muscle control to go for a walk? Probably. And even if it’s not quite perfect — maybe Yukhei will let Mark lean against him for a little more support. Maybe he won’t say anything if Mark decides he wants to hold Yukhei’s wrist in his grip and feel his pulse against the pads of his fingers.

“Sure.”

They don’t go very far. A dozen yards away or so. Enough so the fire leaves them slightly illuminated but still casts them in a fair bit more shadow. They talk about everything and nothing and occasionally they don’t speak at all, just listen to the push and pull of the tide and the sound of the sand under the press of their shoes.

Mark doesn’t know why he asks it, but at one point he says to Yukhei, “anyone here catch your eye?”

And Yukhei takes a few minutes to reply, his brow creased and his bottom lip worried between his teeth. Simultaneously, Mark wishes he could take back the question and is also desperate for the answer.

“I mean,” Yukhei finally decides on his answer. Finally says, “maybe — maybe just one.”

Mark does not ask him any more questions about it.

Eventually, they come to stand side by side, facing west and staring out at the vastness of the ocean, and the vastness of the dark sky that caresses it. Mark and Yukhei’s hands knock together, for a moment, and then the brief accidental touch becomes something more deliberate. Mark presses the length of the back of his hand against Yukhei, like the way they might press their legs together under the table, or the way Mark might just put his foot right on top of Yukhei’s. Not overbearing, no real weight to it, but just a reminder. This feels more intimate — the touch of their hands — and Mark becomes acutely aware of how easy it might be. How simple it could be, if he and Yukhei let it, for Mark to slide his palm against Yukhei’s and interlock their fingers, each one creating the perfect space for the other.

Every day it seems like Yukhei lets Mark get away with a little bit more, without questioning, and every day Mark lets Yukhei get away with a little more in return. He wonders, idly, if one day either of them could find the line and then step over it, or if they will just keep moving back the goal posts until it doesn’t matter.

Mark is still wondering this when he feels Yukhei take his other hand — the one that still isn’t half interlocked with Mark’s, the one that hasn’t wrapped its pinky around Mark’s index and middle finger — and grips Mark’s chin lightly . Mark is still looking out in front of him, until he isn’t, because Yukhei is using the grip to turn his head gently to face Yukhei, where Mark finds Yukhei is already looking at him.

And Mark, brain sloshed with alcohol and the remnants of weed and just the overall debauchery of a night like this, and maybe a little smoke from the fire, is still wondering where the limit is and if it even exists, when Yukhei kisses him.

For the glorious moment that his brain is operating entirely on instinct, Mark kisses him back. He makes a surprised little _mhm_ in the back of his throat, but he leans forward into the press of Yukhei’s mouth and kisses him back. And for that brief, fumbled moment it really is just that easy, and the limit does not exist, and the goal posts just keep moving backwards and backwards.

And then Mark’s brain catches up with him and the reality of it crashes around him, as easily disturbed as a house of cards.

He pulls away from Yukhei, pulls away from his mouth, his grip, the warmth of his skin that spent a day drinking up sunlight. Yukhei looks so confused when Mark pulls away and Mark would feel bad, he really would, if his brain knew how to take in any new information that wasn’t _you were just kissing Yukhei, Yukhei just kissed you_. But it can't, it won’t and so all Mark can lamely do is making a noise that sort of just sounds like “ _nnnngghhhhhwhaaaat_?”

“Mark,” Yukhei calls his name and Mark realizes he keeps taking steps backwards. Like, he’s looking at Yukhei, but he’s walking away. Like, his dumb brain is working on instinct but it’s the wrong instinct — it’s wrong, wrong, _wrong_ but it doesn’t matter.

Yukhei calls his name again but this time — this time Mark’s not looking at him. This time, Mark is turned away and he’s not running away from Yukhei, per se — and he’ll insist he did _not_ run away from Yukhei, if this is is ever brought up again, which he hopes and prays it won’t — but he’s walking fast. And before he knows it he’s finding Johnny, tugging at his sleeve, and insisting to be taken home.

Johnny looks at him funny. But he doesn’t ask questions and then he finds Taeyong, who is sober and has brought his car, and then Taeyong takes him home.

Mark throws up once, on the way home. It makes his throat burn and smells like shit but Mark managed to get it all out of the window, so he hopes Taeyong will forgive him for it.

Mark wakes the next day sometime around 2PM. His head is pounding. He refuses to look at his phone.

He wishes he could say the events of the previous night come rushing back to him but, no. No, it’s been there all through Mark’s fitful sleep and it is the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up. Yukhei had _kissed_ him. His mouth was so nice, so soft and pleasant and good, and Mark had it all to himself, for one moment of blissfulness.

And then he ran away.

Mark groans and attempts to smother himself with his own pillow.

How could he be so fucking stupid?

Because it’s not that he doesn’t like Yukhei. Hell, Mark has probably been into Yukhei since he met him. Mark thinks about the things he first noticed about Yukhei, all physical, and then all the other things he’s come to know about Yukhei since then, his personality, and his big goopy heart, and the way his eyes crease when he smiles and he means it. God, yeah, Mark’s kind of had it bad, all heart eyes and shit, since they met. But in Mark’s great defence strategy for everything that might require a little bit of work, he had resolved not to think about. Don’t think about Yukhei’s mouth, don’t think about Yukhei’s hands. Don’t think about that little bit taller he is than you. Don’t think about how he laughs at all the shit you say, like you’re the funniest motherfucker on the planet. Don’t think about how much time he wants to spend with you. Don’t think about how easily he slid himself amongst the most important things in your life, the things you love being around the most, and he doesn’t mind that you always do the same shit every single day because you’re boring. Don’t think about the fact that, maybe, if this had gone down any other way you might have had a little more tact.

Mark isn’t thinking about any of this. Really, he isn’t.

It’s already almost 7PM when Mark’s mom knocks on his door. She’s left him alone basically all day because Mark has somehow been graced with the best mom on the planet.

Again, this time, she pokes her head in. “Honey bee,” she coos at Mark, “your friend is here. I’m sending him in.”

Mark emerges from his cocoon of blankets, hair a mess and patterns from the pillow pressed into his face. He is still, so thoroughly, hung-the-fuck-over. Imagine his surprise when he finds Yukhei standing in his bedroom.

“Shit,” Mark says without really thinking. Yukhei laughs sheepishly, looking almost guilty, scratching at the back of his neck and blushing this deep shade of crimson on the apples of his cheeks. “No, I mean — it’s a total mess in here. That’s gross.”

Yukhei shrugs, “I don’t really care.”

Yukhei folds one of his legs underneath him and sits on the corner of Mark’s bed. He’s as far away from Mark as he can manage. Mark, himself, remains in his carefully constructed nest of too-many blankets for how hot it is outside, sleep shirt rumbled and in a pair of faded red plaid boxers.

“So, um, I,” Yukhei scratches at the back of his neck again. It must be a habit, something he does when he’s nervous. And biting his lip. He’s doing that right now too. “I wanted to — I guess, maybe come say sorry? About last night?”

Mark opens his mouth to say something but then shuts it with a click of his teeth. Then he opens it and tries again, “why would you say sorry?”

Yukhei blushes and tucks his chin down against his chest. “For, you know,” he pitches his voice down, “like, kissing you. Maybe. Because you didn’t — you didn’t seem very into it.”

“If you are whispering for my mom’s sake, it’s fine. I tell her everything. I’ll probably tell her about this too.” Yukhei blushes even harder. How is that even possible? “And anyway, I’m . . . I’m glad you kissed me, okay?”

Yukhei immediately perks up. “Really?”

It is Mark’s turn to blush now. “Yes, okay?” He replies. “I was . . . surprised, I guess? You just surprised me. I didn’t know you liked me. Much less did I expect you to, like, plant it on me, bro.”

“Please do not call me anything bro-adjacent when we’re talking about kissing, Mark,” Yukhei’s nose is wrinkled in disgust.

Mark laughs, then Yukhei laughs and just like that, things start to feel a little easier again. Like on the beach, before the kiss, when Mark was just thinking about what it might be like to hold Yukhei’s hand. Only this time he’s thinking —

“Would you kiss me again?”

Yukhei stops laughing. He blinks at Mark. “What?”

“Kiss me,” Mark repeats. “Like, if I’m expecting it this time I won’t run away. Probably.”

Yukhei doesn’t say anything. He does not reply with words but, instead, replies in actions. His body is large, and maybe a little clumsy, but his movements are assured as he climbs across Mark’s bed. Closer to Mark, and then closer still, enough to have Mark leaning back against his head board, hands braced beside him. Yukhei slinks into Mark’s space. He brings their faces close together, leaning over Mark, bracing his own hands beside Mark’s on either side of Mark’s waist. This is where Yukhei pauses: his own face inches from Mark, their noses brushing, their mouths filtering the same air back and forth between them.

When Yukhei kisses him, the second time that feels more like a proper first, compared to last night, Mark melts. The tension in his body bleeds out of him and is replaced by Yukhei; the way he smells, the way his mouth feels against Mark’s, the way he settles on top of Mark, as Mark’s own muscles begin to melt away and he lies back against his own bed.

And now they’re lying on Mark’s bed, the mess of pillows and blankets all caught underneath them. Mark’s body is caged from above by Yukhei’s broad shoulders and strong arms and their legs have slid together and tangled up. Every time Yukhei pulls back, just a little, even just tilts his head, Mark chases his mouth. He can’t help it. He doesn’t know how to pull away from this. So he links his arms around Yukhei’s neck and pulls him closer. Until Yukhei’s arms are buckling and he is falling, gently, on top of Mark and now they’re pressed together from chest to knees.

Mark can feel the way his breath is coming out ragged, his chest trapped under the weight of Yukhei’s. God, it feels so nice.

Then, there’s the unmistakable crash of several pots falling and Mark and Yukhei part.

Mark is suddenly hyper-aware of his being mom downstairs, trying to mind her own business, while he lets a boy climb on top of him and kiss him silly in his room.

“Mom,” Mark calls, “are you okay?” Her reply is muffled, but it sounds like it’s in the affirmative.

Mark looks back at Yukhei. He’s still hovering above Mark, with more space between them again. There is a moment where just — well, they sort of just stare at one another. Mark takes in the plains of Yukhei’s face and watches Yukhei’s eyes flick across Mark’s to do the same. Then he’s biting his lip and dropping his head into the curve of Mark’s neck.

Mark can feel the puffs of warm air against his neck, and can see the slight shake to Yukhei’s shoulders, as he laughs against Mark’s skin. Then, he presses his lips to Mark’s pulse point, briefly, and Mark is positive he’s died and gone to heaven.

They get kind of messy after that.

Not in a bad way. Just in a _we just figured out we both like kissing each other_ , excited, explorative way. They manage to keep it mostly in check around their friends. Their friends who promptly figured out exactly what was going on and then immediately did not care about it, beyond being able to tease both of them.

Johnny had rounded up Mark in a head lock for it, and messed up his hair, and then said, “be safe,” and had laughed for twenty minutes about how red it made Mark.

They do a lot of the same things they used to. It’s just — different now, kind of, except it’s not much different at all. They still go to the skatepark and Yukhei still badgers Mark to explain everything from dropping in on a vert to tre flips. They go to the Boardwalk, and the taco place they all like, and In-N-Out, and now Yukhei and Mark always share the same side of the table. They always link their fingers underneath the table, or Yukhei puts his hand on Mark’s thigh, or Mark puts his hand on Yukhei’s, or they’re really fucking disgusting and cute and just go for it and play footsies.

The real difference is when they’re alone.

They spend a lot more time alone now. They spent loads of time before but now it’s even more. And, to be honest, they spend most of it kissing.

One night, after a long shift at _Gherardo’s_ , Yukhei meets Mark at work and walks him home. They end up making out against the wall next to Mark’s front door, Mark tugging on the collar of Yukhei’s shirt and Yukhei tugging on Mark’s belt loops.

Mark definitely still smells like pizza dough and tomato sauce and garlic butter but Yukhei kisses him anyway. It makes Mark feel more fond then he’d like to admit.

“Hey,” Yukhei says, pulling away. His mouth is red. Mark imagines his looks the same, with the way it feels kiss-bruised and hot. “I like you a lot.”

“I like you too,” Mark replies, punctuating his words with small pecks against Yukhei’s prone mouth. “So much.”

They move back against each other, mouths coming to press together one more time. Then, Yukhei pulls away again and for a split second, looks like he’s going to say more. Yukheis still has those eyes — those eyes that have never known how to hide anything well — and just from a flash in them Mark can tell he wants to say something, something big, but just as quickly as it arrived it is gone again.

So, all Yukhei does is sigh, and speaks Mark’s own name to him through it.

Mark pulls him back in for another kiss.

Mark would be lying if he said he didn’t think about it.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't basically obsessing over it. If he said it wasn’t something he was hyper-focused on.

“It” being: Mark and Yukhei and the defining parameters of their relationship, or lack thereof. And, the thing is, Mark would love to be Yukhei’s boyfriend. Would love to be able to have that kind of claim over him, to be able to look at him across a room and think _that’s my boyfriend_ and be able to tell people _I have a boyfriend_. He’d never thought he’d be one for possession in that way and he’s not, not really. He would simply like the comfort of it. The explicit declaration of it.

But Mark also knows that it’s barely been a week. He and Yukhei have been doing this, the kissing and all that, for just over a week. Sure, there was maybe some buildup before that. Sure, they might have always been leading up to this point. But all of those earlier moments were different. They were a means to an end and, thus, did not contribute to the whole.

So, yeah, Mark hyper-fixates on it. He hyper-fixates on it but he doesn’t not talk to Yukhei about it. Because it has only been a week and he has no desire to scare Yukhei and things like this — things worth doing and worth doing the right way — take time.

Yukhei is tracing shapes into Mark’s open palm when he asks, “why does your mom call you honey bee?”

They’re sitting on a patch of grass near the beach, watching two teams composed of their friends play the least consistently judged game of volleyball ever. It’s not quite as warm as it has been, today. A breeze cuts through the air and it is cool and refreshing and pleasant.

“I was afraid of bees,” Mark explains. “When I was a kid, like, totally, super, hardcore afraid. Even cartoon ones or just the drawings on jars of honey. I think I saw a movie where a kid was allergic to bees and died from getting stung. Fucked me up for years.”

Yukhei traces circle after circle after circle, then switches to a handful of triangles and then traces what Mark thinks might be a heart.

“My mom was worried about it. Like, I can’t explain to you how badly I was afraid of bees. It was enough to seriously worry her,” Mark laughs under his breath. “So she started calling me honey bee. Like it was some kind of weird exposure therapy. I guess she thought, maybe, if I started associating them with her instead of what made them scary to me I’d be less afraid.”

“Did it work?” Yukhei asks.

Mark shrugs. “Sure. Or I just got older. But it stuck. She’s gonna call me that until the day I die.”

“My mom still lives in Hong Kong,” Yukhei confesses. He’s never told Mark that before. When he says it, he sounds wistful and far away. “She worked really hard for me to be able to come to NYU. I miss her a lot.”

Mark nods slowly, understanding. He’s not sure what he’d do without his mom around.

Yukhei stops tracing patterns against Mark’s hand and instead weaves their fingers together. “Anyway, she calls me Xuxi. Which is technically just my name but, like, it’s just complicated. But I like that she calls me that. That it’s special.”

When Yukhei meets Mark’s eyes, he looks very serious. Then, he says, “you can call me Xuxi, sometimes. If you want.”

Mark knows that is something very, very special and very, very intimate. Yukhei has handed something Mark very precious, cradled in both his hands, delicate like the wings of butterflies, and begged Mark not to break it.

“Okay,” Mark says quietly, determined to do what Yukhei has asked of him. “My nickname is definitely not as cute as that one but if you want to use it you can.”

“ _You’re_ cute,” Yukhei replies, beaming, and then he kisses the tip of Mark’s nose.

Almost three weeks into Mark and Yukhei, the unit, instead of Mark and Yukhei, the individuals — and still lacking any sort of proper label — Yukhei takes his shirt off while they’re kissing for the first time.

Mark hates that it feels like some sort of weird milestone. They kiss all the time. It has probably become the thing they do together most often. Lately, it’s been making him more and more nervous. Lately, there has been this specific charge to the room when they’re doing it.

The only cool spot in Mark’s house is the basement — the cramped half-finished downstairs, with just a couch and TV and an area rug, exposed concrete and support beams, Mark keeps asking if they can get a foosball table to put down here — and even there, it’s not that cold. But it’s the only place he and Yukhei can stand to spend extended periods of time, especially with the way they’re always sharing body heat these days.

They spend most of their time alone in the basement, obviously, kissing. And kissing and kissing until Mark’s lips feel bruised and aching, and then some more, because Mark hasn’t learnt how to be alone with Yukhei and want to do anything else yet.

Mark learns the different ways he can feel Yukhei: what it’s like when Yukhei is above him, pressing him back, gentle but insistent, into the couch pillows, and then, what it’s like to have Yukhei below him, with Yukhei’s face framed by both of Mark’s hands, and their hips slotted together. He learns the different ways Yukhei tastes: sometimes sweet, like Sprite or candy, and sometimes earthy, after they’ve smoked together, and sometimes fresh — like the first sip of water after you wake up, or right after you’ve brushed your teeth.

One night, they have a movie on but they’re not watching it. They are simply wrapped in the cold blue-green glow of the television and they stretch out on the couch, lips moving languidly together. Whenever they kiss it is never a sort of means to an end. It’s only ever for the enjoyment of it.

But, tonight, Yukhei pulls away from Mark and asks, “can I take my shirt off?”

Mark has seen Yukhei without a shirt before. This feels different. This seems very purposeful and very much the kind of nakedness that precedes other things — things Mark is not totally sure he’s ready for. But it’s just Yukhei, shirtless, and Mark can handle that. Mark likes that. Mark wants that.

“Yeah,” Mark nods a few times, chewing on his lip. “Yeah, okay.”

Yukhei pulls his shirt over his head and Mark admires the way it stretches his middle out; the way his ribs push against the skin that confines them, the way his waist is cinched, the muscles in his arms he uses to tug himself free of this particular piece of clothing.

Yukhei has this tattoo on his side. It’s the proud head of a lion, done in black and grey and definitely a few years old. The lion looks old and powerful and regal and the way Yukhei’s skin transitions from smooth tan to harsh, inked lines is beautiful and also kind of hot. Mark traces his finger against it as Yukhei still sits above him, legs on either side of Mark’s waist and shirt now discarded.

Yukhei let’s Mark look a little while longer, before he’s leaning back over and capturing Mark in another kiss. He is quick to maneuver Mark’s mouth open under the press of his own and then there’s his tongue, hot and wet.

Again, this is all stuff they’ve done already. Yukhei is usually wearing his shirt but, still, it is not totally foreign territory. But then Yukhei rolls his hips down against Mark’s, only a little, just exploratory and definitely careful, and Mark is pushing at Yukhei’s shoulders and saying, “wait, wait, wait.”

Yukhei looks confused but he climbs up and off of Mark, folding his legs underneath him on the couch and sitting on them. “Is something,” Yukhei asks, “did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s just,” Mark feels flustered and hot all over. “I like the kissing, and the other stuff,” he thinks about the hickey Yukhei left on his collarbone a week ago, and the one Mark left on his throat in return, “the other stuff is fine too. And I like you a lot. Probably more than I’ve liked anyone? That doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is I don’t — I don’t know if I’m ready for like — everything. All the stuff. Y’know?”

Mark is sheepish. He scratches an itch that does not exist on his forearm, just for something to do with one of his hands. He is convinced that this, _this_ will be the thing that turns Yukhei away.

Instead, Yukhei smiles comfortingly at Mark, and says, “okay.”

“Wait,” Mark sputters, “for real?”

Yukhei raises an eyebrow. “Would you rather I say no and reject you?”

“No,” Mark shakes his head vigorously. “No, I take it back. Don’t do that. Come back here and kiss me some more.”

Yukhei does.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the brief moment of silence that follows Mark’s speaking, he lets himself believe that Yukhei might say no. Lets himself imagine the scenario where this is all just a misunderstanding, where someone saw the wrong thing, and Yukhei will tell him no, no, I didn’t and Mark can melt into his embrace, so tired and sad, but it’ll be okay, and Yukhei will kiss him and Mark will finally find the breath in him to say, we’re being really stupid, can’t we just — can’t we just be official? Will you just be with me properly?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final part ♡ thank you everyone for reading. i'm sorry that it's about get a little hurty.

_**August.** _

On the 8th of August, Mark turns twenty and his friends throw him a party.

It’s supposed to be a surprise party but no one manages to keep the secret. They yell “surprise” anyway, when Mark opens the back door to the surf shop, but that’s probably more for their own benefit than it is Mark’s.

The shop looks much the same as it always does these nights — hazy colored lights, stacked cans of surfboard wax piled into random corners, a dozen sets of swimming goggles staring up at the ceiling — but now there are balloons, all the colours of the rainbow, and two big gold ones: the shape of the number two, the other a zero. Someone’s cut holographic paper into little triangle flags and hung them with string from anywhere it might make sense to do so. And there, on the coffee table in the centre of the back room, with all the chairs and the couch pushed away from it, is a bright pink cake. It’s got enough candles burning on top of it to maybe be actually twenty of them, and definitely enough to be a fire hazard. In shakily applied blue icing, the cake proclaims _HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!_ but all the A’s are shaped like hearts.

Mark feels like someone is setting off fireworks in his chest cavity. And every time he takes in something else that someone has done, carefully and lovingly, just for him — another one goes off.

Mark’s lying on the floor.

It’s on the dirty woven rug that covers most of the concrete floor of the back room. It’s much cooler down here, than on the couch, or in the one of the chairs, or among the stray bodies standing around, still left over from a party that’s fading away.

Someone — probably Jaehyun, Jaehyun is always the one who ends up playing music at these parties — is playing that Calvin Harris song that goes _I've been thinking way too much and I'm way too gone to drive_.

Johnny’s sitting in the chair — the one Mark was sunk into the first night he met Yukhei, and that feels like so long ago, but still somehow like it was yesterday — nursing the last third of a spliff. Taeyong is in his lap, boneless, and they’re never really usually like this but everyone’s a little more free and open tonight. Maybe they’ve just been smoking some really good weed.

“Birthday boy,” Johnny calls to Mark, holding out the still lit remnants of the joint. “Finish this for me, huh?”

Mark does not need to be asked twice.

That’s where Yukhei finds him: lying on the floor, one hand pillowing his head, and the last few puffs of the joint sitting between his thumb and forefinger.

He just grins down at Mark for a moment — big bright eyes, big bright smiles, a little hazy and a little goofy from a good time — towering, looking soft in a hoodie he took right out of Mark’s closet. It’s a little small for Yukhei, but he wears it anyway, and he never seems to care that it exposes his tummy every time he lifts his arms over his head.

Mark, obviously, does not mind in the slightest.

Yukhei plops down next to Mark, just lays himself on the floor right next to him. Then he says, “are you having a good birthday?”

Mark exhales a cloud of smoke. “Well, seeing as it’s,” he glances at his phone, “2 AM, it is no longer my birthday.”

Yukhei shoves his shoulder playfully. “You know what I meant.”

The slowly burning away joint is warm between Mark’s fingers, and Yukhei is warm at his side, and there is this warm feeling in Mark’s stomach, so he says, “yeah, I had a good birthday.”

Mark takes another hit and then Yukhei is asking him, lifted up onto an elbow now, “can I have some?”

Mark nods and before he can even offer Yukhei what is sure to be the final pull on the joint, Yukhei is rolling himself on top of Mark. He sits with his knees bracketing either side of Mark’s chest and his ass pressing low on Mark’s stomach. Yukhei leans forward, then, and cups Mark face in his hands and Mark realizes what’s going on here. He opens his mouth obediently and holds his breath, keeps the leftover smoke in his mouth, until Yukhei is close enough that their mouths are almost touching. They don’t touch, but their noses brush, and Mark can feel loose strands of Yukhei’s hair graze his forehead. Mark breathes out then — slow, purposeful — and Yukhei inhales, pulling into his own mouth the smoke from Mark’s.

God, Yukhei is so hot. Mark can’t believe all the things he and Yukhei do together, that Mark is the person Yukhei wants to press his body against, and kiss, and trade the same cloud of smoke with, and hold hands with, and fall asleep in the same bed with, clutched together despite the heat.

Yukhei pulls back from Mark, just a little, just enough for Mark to miss the proximity, so Yukhei can exhale the cloud of smoke above them. Then, he returns. Mark’s mouth is still open, but only slightly, bottom lip all red and pouty looking. And it starts and is over before Mark can even really process it, but he knows he’ll be thinking about it for hours to come — knows that when Yukhei leans even closer to Mark’s mouth and gives two long, steadfast licks to the curve of Mark’s bottom lip, over the open seam between the two of them, and then over Mark’s cupid bow, Mark will have a hard time ever forgetting it.

A weak, “oh,” is all Mark manages to say aloud. Yukhei smirks. He rolls off of Mark, tucking himself as close against him as he can against the carpet. He keeps fucking _giggling_ , like, Mark can see, from the corner of his eye, Yukhei looking over at him intermittently and just getting all fucking giddy.

And all Mark can say is another, “oh.”

So, they end up making out in the bathroom.

Yukhei kept laughing into Mark’s shoulder, over and over, little twinkly laughs that kept spilling out of him like he couldn’t help himself. And Mark was so flustered — he couldn’t stop thinking about Yukhei’s mouth, the taste of it, what it might be like to kiss him right now, in this specific moment. And Mark did nothing but think about it, really, for a good ten minutes. Until he couldn’t take it anymore, until theory was never going to be enough, and he needed to know what it would be like in practice. So with red painting his cheeks in splotches, he had said to Yukhei, “will you come with me?”

That’s why they’re here now: the bathroom, the door locked. Mark pinned between the hard porcelain of the sink basin and the soft animal of Yukhei’s mouth. The white noise in Mark’s brain from the weed is quiet, just a whisper, but the way the weed has seemingly set all of his nerve endings at a higher sensitivity is impossible to ignore.

Yukhei’s body exists in dichotomy: a road map of veins and of sinewy muscle from it’s soft spots to spots that are more firm. He kisses Mark, and it is gentle but insistent, and his grip on Mark’s waist is strong but malleable.

Maybe the bathroom wasn’t the best idea, someone will need to use it eventually, but it’s Mark’s fucking _birthday party_ , even if it’s not technically still his birthday. Whoever will need this bathroom can wait. It’s Mark’s birthday and he likes Yukhei _so much_ it always feels like he’s swallowed a dozen butterflies around him. How did it end up like this? How did this otherwise unassuming summer turn into Mark’s very own coming-of-age romcom?

It’s so close to perfect. It’s almost, almost, _almost_ there. If Mark could just figure out how to move the pieces the right way, they would slot together easily, and it would be. It would be exactly what Mark would ever want from this.

It would be exactly the kind of stuff you think can only be possible in daydreams.

But all Mark can manage is to open his mouth under the pressure of Yukhei’s, breathe slowly through his nose, and hope that it will be a very, very long time before someone knocks on the bathroom door.

Just like that: Mark turns twenty, and then life returns to normal.

Mark is twenty and he doesn’t really know what it’s like to love someone. Not really. Not the way they write songs about. Not in the way that is the subject of an infinite number of poems and books and mournful letters, and looks, and long conversations. He loves his mom. He loves his friends, of course he loves his friends. Maybe he should be content with that. A lot of people don’t even get that.

And then there’s Yukhei. There’s the way he can just _look_ at Mark, dripping sunny disposition, and Mark will feel like his tongue swells in his mouth. There’s the way he has spent night after night at Mark’s house, across from Mark in his bed. The way the blinds on Mark’s window slit the light that comes through in the morning against Yukhei’s skin. There’s him sitting across the table from Mark, eating cereal in ridiculous sized bites, and Mark tangling their socked feet under the table. There’s the way Yukhei will sometimes find a bruise or a half-healed cut Mark got from skateboarding and he will press his lips to it — tender and soft, and then proclaim, proudly, “there you go. I fixed it.”

So, Mark has never been in love. But there is still Yukhei.

Mark thinks that it might be nice to know what it’s like to love someone. Maybe all he has to do is try hard enough.

The days move along in slow crawls. It gets hotter outside. Days at the skatepark are spent less doing any actual skating and more laying on the hot concrete, or huddling under whatever the angle of the sun affords them. Mark gets a sunburn all over his nose and shoulders.

Mark feels restless and he can’t figure out why. Every moment that passes feels like running a mile and his brain will not shut itself off.

He gets like this on occasion. It passes. Mark usually smokes more weed to cope but he doesn’t have the money for it right now.

Which is why he picks up an extra shift at _Gherardo’s_ on Saturday. Which is why he can’t go to the party Haechan has extended an invite for over Facebook.

It’s at some random girl’s house. Mark doesn’t know who she is. He expects she doesn’t quite know what she’s getting herself into with this one.

Yukhei tugs on Mark’s wrist and whines, “I won’t know anyone there if you don’t come, Mark,” and he stretches out the A in Mark to punctuate his despair.

“Our whole friend group is going,” Mark retorts.

They had ducked into the first Subway they could find after the weather turned sweltering today. They’re all broken up into various booths and no doubt annoying the employees — Ten and Jaehyun sitting opposite Taeyong and Johnny, Yuta and Doyoung and Jungwoo in the booth behind them, and then Mark and Yukhei, sitting on the same side of the last one.

“Okay, well,” Yukhei pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “I won’t want to talk to _anyone_ else if you don’t come, I’ll be so sad,” is the second excuse he decides on to try and get Mark to come.

Mark sighs. Yukhei is looking at him with his big owl eyes and he’s got this smile on his mouth like he can’t help it. That’s the expression he usually wears whenever he and Mark are together. Mark is trying not to let it go to his head. “I really need the money, Xuxi,” Mark says, with some finality.

“Quit your job,” Yukhei continues. Mark knows he’s just joking now. Yukhei gathers up both of Mark’s hands into one of his bigger ones, shifts to look at him face-to-face, and speaks exaggeratedly. “I’ll take care of you. Buy you everything you need. You want it, I got it, baby.”

“You’re a college sophomore who lives on the other side of the country,” Mark says, extracting his hands. Yukhei chases after them. They are both laughing quietly under their breath as they play fight, wearing matching bright expressions. “What are you gonna be able to provide?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, baby. I’ll figure it all out for you,” and after he says it Yukhei plants a disgusting, wet kiss on Mark’s cheek.

The night of the party, Mark gets a text two hours into his shift.

from: xuxi ♡  
_i’m already bored at this party and i miss you_

to: xuxi ♡  
_go get drunk and forget about me_

from: xuxi ♡  
_i’d never forget about you_

Mark swallows.

to: xuxi ♡  
_blech.  
go get drunk anyway dummy_

Yukhei is quiet for awhile. Mark distracts himself with menial tasks. _Gherardo’s_ remains quiet. When Mark’s phone vibrates again he nearly jumps out of his skin.

from: xuxi ♡  
_i ammmmmmm dRUNK nwo!  
bttu i still msis u :(_

Mark can’t help but to laugh quietly. He bites his lip.

to: xuxi ♡  
_i miss you too  
but you should try and have a good time without me  
go dance or smth  
you’re good at that_

Yukhei does not reply after that. Not even after Mark clocks out from work and rides home on his skateboard. He doesn’t give it too much pause — he’s sure Yukhei is probably just enjoying himself. Most of Mark’s friends are at the party, too, and they’ll take care of him.

Just before he falls asleep, Mark rereads one message over and over: the delicate affection of _i’d never forget about you_. Mark stares at the words until his eyes strain from it. When he turns his phone off and rolls over in his bed, he whispers them aloud to himself.

In a pit deep in his stomach, he wishes that Yukhei means them in a way beyond that night, that party. He craves them to be something grander than that. Something spread across a larger timeline.

This is, of course, when everything starts to fall apart.

The rot settles into Mark on Monday.

The Monday after the party. Mark is sitting on Johnny and Taeyong’s couch and no one is there besides him and Taeyong — Johnny took everyone to get coffee, Taeyong tells him, and they’ll be back soon — and it is the most unassuming afternoon.

Funny, how life works that way. How you can bite into an apple that looks fine from the outside and find it soft and brown and gone bad underneath.

“Mark,” Taeyong sits next to him on the couch. Mark had been slumped into it, but something in Taeyong’s tone and posture makes him sit up straight. Mark worries. Is everything okay with Taeyong and Johnny? “Mark, I want to tell you something. And I know it’s going to upset you but I’m — I’m not trying to hurt you, on purpose, I just think I need to let you know.”

_No_ , Mark almost says because, somehow, his gut is already telling him this is about Yukhei.

Mark takes in Taeyong’s culpable expression.

He does not want this to be about Yukhei.

Instead, he says, “okay.”

“Mark. When we were at that party a few days ago, I.” Mark knows Taeyong wants the best for him. He knows Taeyong would protect him from anything, that he wants to keep Mark safe, and happy, and loved. And if he wants all of those things then why isn’t he telling Mark this right now? Surely he knows —

“I think Yukhei slept with someone. That night.”

Surely he knows how much that will hurt Mark to hear.

“Can we talk?”

Mark wishes he could take it back as soon as he asks. It’s been a whole day that he’s been sitting on what Taeyong told him. He knows it will get worse the longer he takes to rip off the band-aid; like that time they went into the beach and he dove head first into the freezing water. You gotta get it over with.

But still — Mark wishes he could go back to a time where he didn’t know any of this. Wishes he could fall and hit his head, develop amnesia, and let everything lie without this thing nagging at the back of his head — poking and poking and poking, like an IV that keeps missing the vein.

“Of course,” Yukhei replies. “What do you want to talk about?”

It sounds like he has no idea. Like he has no idea what Mark is about to bring up. Mark almost feels guilty.

“That party last week,” Mark starts. He watches Yukhei for a reaction. His expression remains impassive. Mark’s palms feel clammy. “Someone — someone told me something, and I just want you to answer a question for me.”

_Don’t lose your nerve now_ , a voice echoes through Mark’s head.

He’s not looking at Yukhei anymore. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to watch the way Yukhei’s expression might crumble and if it doesn’t — well, that might hurt even worse, right?

“Yukhei, I,” Mark’s heart is racing. It reminds him of the first time Yukhei kissed him and then, again, the second time Yukhei kissed him. Only, this time, the context is the exact opposite. “Did you sleep with someone else at that party on Saturday?”

“Mark. Who told you that?”

“Please just answer the question.”

In the brief moment of silence that follows Mark’s speaking, he lets himself believe that Yukhei might say no. Lets himself imagine the scenario where this is all just a misunderstanding, where someone saw the wrong thing, and Yukhei will tell him _no, no, I didn’t_ and Mark can melt into his embrace, so tired and sad, but it’ll be okay, and Yukhei will kiss him and Mark will finally find the breath in him to say, _we’re being really stupid, can’t we just — can’t we just be official? Will you just be with me properly?_

But none of that happens.

Instead, Yukhei says, “I did.”

Mark’s chest collapses in on itself, his pounding heart must just be a mess of pulp and gore on his ribcage. There’s no way it hurts this bad and gets out of this mess unscathed.

“Xuxi,” Mark says, more of an exhale, an aborted sob, than a call of Yukhei’s name proper.

God, he wishes he hadn’t asked. He wishes Taeyong hadn’t told him. He wishes they could have lived on, blissfully ignorant, and Yukhei would go back to New York and maybe Mark would have seen him again, and maybe he wouldn’t have, but it would never hurt this much.

“Mark, I didn’t —” Mark is still not looking at Yukhei. He’s looking at his own hands, starts picking at a hangnail. He sees Yukhei’s arm reach out for him, so Mark takes a step back. He hears Yukhei suck in a breath. “I thought — I thought, maybe, you wouldn’t care.”

“What.” It’s not a question. Mark is so tired of asking questions. He is exhausted from listening to Yukhei answer them.

“Listen, I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have — please, will you look at me?”

Mark does. All of this and he still can’t find it in him to not do something Yukhei asks of him.

Yukhei, to his credit, looks upset. He looks guilty. He still has those same eyes he’s always had, wide and open and communicating every emotion that Yukhei feels through them. Mark’s own eyes meet Yukhei’s. He did not feel like crying before, and he is embarrassed to think he might now.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why would you even do that in the first place? Why would you think I _wouldn’t care_?”

_You know my mom_ , Mark thinks. _You know my mom, and all of my friends. And you stay over at my house all the time and my mom makes us dinner. You sit at the skatepark with me for hours even though I know you get bored sometimes. You laugh at my jokes. You always get this specific look in your eyes whenever I catch you looking at me when you think I won’t notice. You kissed me first. I know it hasn’t been forever but it’s been weeks. How could you think I wouldn’t care._

“It was stupid. I was stupid. Okay?” Yukhei reaches out for Mark again and, again, Mark backs away. He takes several steps away from Yukhei this time. He is desperate to put some distance between them. His heart and his brain are begging him to get out of here, to try and save himself some of this all-consuming ache. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I did it. I just —”

And that — that _I just_ , the implication that Yukhei may just try and explain this to Mark, in a way that will justify it for Yukhei, that will maybe absolve him something — that is what does it for Mark.

He cuts Yukhei off.

“Please don’t talk to me again.”

Yukhei’s face folds into confusion for a brief moment as the words wash over him, before it is falling. He looks hurt. Mark knows there is a part of him that hurts in return, to see Yukhei look at him like that, to be the cause for that kind of look, but he stamps it down. He catches the feeling in a bottle and hurls it out into the ocean, to be forgotten and never seen by Mark again.

“Please,” Yukhei says, “you don’t mean that, Mark, you can’t. Please.”

“Yukhei,” Mark repeats. He holds his voice steady. He will remember to be proud of himself for it later. “I said that I don’t want to talk to you again. I don’t want to talk to you or see you again.”

And he means it, he really does, and when Mark turns on his heels and leaves Yukhei, he resolves to forget about him.

Mark feels awful for days.

The worst moment comes sitting across the dinner table from his mom. “Mark,” she says, watching him pick pieces of crusts off his untouched sandwich. “Are you feeling okay, honey bee?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he replies, even though he knows she knows he’s lying.

She gets this look on her face after that. It reminds Mark of when he’d first started coming home with bruises and scrapes from skating. It’s this look that tells him she’s worried for him, and she wishes he wouldn’t do this, but she knows he has to, and she wishes she could just make it easier. It is the quiet acceptance of the reality that Mark has to make his own mistakes.

“Some people are meant to be in our lives forever, Mark,” she tells him, “and some people only come around for a short while. It doesn’t make them any less important.”

In the immediate aftermath of leaving Yukhei behind, Mark had felt lonely. Before even a week had passed, he felt the absence of Yukhei in his life. And as time pressed onward, it’s only gotten worse and worse.

And it’s not just Yukhei. It’s everyone. Mark can’t spend time with Ten because Ten will always be with Yukhei. And he can’t run to hide out at Johnny and Taeyong’s apartment, because that’s where Yukhei is staying. And even if Yukhei wasn’t there, at that specific moment, there would be evidence of his existence everywhere. There would be his mess of blankets strewn about the floor, stray socks missing their counterpart, the glass of water Yukhei drinks from at night left on one of the end tables.

Thus, Mark wallows. He wakes up mid-afternoon and goes to work. He uses his extra money to buy six-packs of Red Bull and new cans of spray paint and at night he tip-toes out through the garage and spends hours working on his graffiti.

He makes a cartoon-ish self-portrait: a skeleton boy wearing a beanie and jean shorts and a Santa Cruz t-shirt. This skeleton version of Mark is missing the lower part of his jaw and he is holding his own can of spray paint, and the piece that he’s working on is just big, solid black block letters that say _FUCK_. Then he paints an obscured figure, just a hazy shadow, sitting alone on a deserted island, the palm trees bright orange and pink, and he’s building an S. O.S sign out of rocks, only instead of S.O.S it spells out _FEELING LONELY_. He finds no inspiration for a bigger piece. He thinks of the lion’s head tattooed on Yukhei’s side. Mark imagines how it might look emblazoned in brighter colours, something like a sunset, and how it might look wearing a crown, or a silver chain.

Then, after Mark has thought about Yukhei for entirely too long, he abandons his thoughts about all the ways he could paint the lion and has to resist the urge to paint a giant sad face in plain black and call it a day.

“I think we need to have a talk, dude,” Johnny corners Mark with one mid-afternoon.

Johnny takes Mark to get ice cream because of course he does. He buys Mark his favourite kind of ice cream without even needing to ask him what it is and they each take a side of a booth near the window. The benches are a faded pink and seafoam green and sticky against Mark’s bare skin, and cartoonish bowls and cones of ice cream watch them from all over the walls. Mark considers adding his own version to the collection of graffiti he’s been adding to the wall.

Johnny lets Mark have at least a dozen blessed bites of ice cream, uncomplicated and easy, before he brings anything up.

“So,” he says, finally, “you’ve been upset for awhile now.”

“Yeah, well,” Mark scoops up a spoonful of ice cream, and then lets it plop lamely back into his bowl. “Getting your heart stomped to bits will do that.”

Mark realizes, belatedly, that he kind of sort of just admitted the breadth of his feelings for Yukhei with that statement. Whatever. As if nobody else knew. As if it wasn’t obvious, at least when it was coming from Mark. Maybe Yukhei was a little less obvious. What with the fucking other —

“Mark,” Johnny snaps Mark out of his own head. “I get that. I’m sorry.”

Mark shrugs.

“You’re hurt and you’re allowed to be hurt. You’re mad at him and you’re allowed to be mad at him,” Johnny continues. “I won’t tell you to not be mad at him but — Mark, did you tell him you wanted to be exclusive?”

Mark chews on his bottom lip. “No,” he admits, “but you saw us. I thought it was, y’know, I thought he knew. About how much I liked him. I thought it was obvious.”

“And I’m sure he thought it was obvious that he liked you in the first place back in July.”

Mark blushes. God, things were easier then, weren’t they? Blushy and awkward and fumbling but easier. They were working towards something together. Now they’re not working, at all, and they’re not together.

Technically, they never were.

“Listen, Mark,” Johnny runs a hand through his hair. “You can’t be vague with your feelings and then fault someone for misunderstanding them.”

“But he —”

“I said you can still be mad at him,” Johnny holds his hands up, halting Mark’s protests. “But, I don’t know, Mark — maybe consider how this whole thing looked to Yukhei? You knew you weren’t stringing him along until he left for New York again — I assume you did, anyway, consciously or subconsciously — but how is he meant to know that?”

He’s right. Mark can’t stand that he’s right. He shoves his mouth full of ice cream in frustration.

“When did you get so level-headed?” He asks Johnny after he’s swallowed.

“Taeyong.” Johnny replies simply.

Despite the talk from Johnny, it is not Mark who goes to Yukhei.

Instead, Yukhei comes to him.

Mark’s staring at the ceiling, headphones in, when his mom knocks on his door.

“Honey bee,” she says, voice as quiet and as comforting as always. “Yukhei is downstairs,” Mark can’t believe she remembers his name but, then again, of course she does. “And if you don’t want to talk to him I can tell him to leave but if you do — if you do I can send him up here.”

Mark considers his options for a long moment. His mom, bless her soul, waits patiently for his answer.

“You can tell him to come up,” he finally decides. His mom smiles at him, even though she seems a little worried, and before she leaves she kisses him gently on the forehead.

It is strange having Yukhei in his room again. Mark thinks of the first time, Yukhei wearing the swim trunks he borrowed from Mark, and the second time, when Yukhei had pushed him back into his mattress and kissed him, nervous energy coming off the both of them in waves, until they slipped into a rhythm more comfortable, and it got easier.

Mark doesn’t feel anything like he did those times. In some ways, it feels like he wasn’t even the one who experienced them. It feels like a different version of Mark, far removed from the one he is now.

Yukhei looks like a different version of himself, too. He is dressed inelegantly, a hoodie pulled over to try (and failing) to cover the mess of his hair. In his hands, Yukhei holds the hoodie of Mark’s he took to wearing. It is folded delicately.

“Hey,” Yukhei clears his throat. “I thought I should bring this back. I — I washed it. For you.”

Mark is sitting on the edge of his bed. Yukhei stands just inside Mark’s room, the door closed behind him. It feels like miles of distance. Mark reaches his hand out for his hoodie and Yukhei steps a little closer to hand it to him.

With empty hands, Yukhei threads his own fingers together and wrings them. “I know you said you didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” Yukhei starts, “and I respect that — I promise I do but I — Mark, I can’t go home knowing that I didn’t properly apologize to you.”

He doesn’t say _I can’t go home knowing you don’t forgive me_ , that’s not what he says.

Yukhei continues, “because I am really sorry, Mark. Okay? I’m really, really sorry and I know — I know it doesn’t make it any better, or make me deserving of — of anything from you. But,” Yukhei takes this big breath and lets it out slowly. Then he says, “I thought about it for a while and I think. I think maybe I wanted to make you jealous. And I know that doesn’t make it any better, or excuse anything but I just.”

Mark realizes his hands are wracked with small tremors. His own hoodie feels soft against his palms. He’s probably just imagining it but it sort of smells like laundry detergent and sort of still smells like Yukhei.

“I like you _so much_ , Mark.” It’s the present tense of the words that make Mark suck in a breath. His stomach turns and gets all knotted up. “And I know being with — doing that to you, that was a shitty way to show it.”

“You think?”

Yukhei, to his credit, flinches a little when Mark says it. “I like you so much, Mark, and I like being around you. And, like, doing gross shit riling each other up and, like, holding hands and — fuck — _kissing_ , Mark, and I know you like — you liked me too. And I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess. I wanted so bad for this to be something that went beyond, went beyond the past three months. Something that could still happen after I left. Maybe that was selfish of me. No, no — it was selfish of me to expect that of you and never say it. But after everything I didn’t want to make you feel — cornered into anything. And that just ruined everything, didn’t it?”

Yukhei’s voice gets really quiet near the end. Like he’s speaking more to himself than he is to Mark. He runs a hand through his hair and his hood falls off. Somewhere along the way, Mark makes room for Yukhei to sit beside him on his bed, and Yukhei takes this offer as fast as he can. He sits next to Mark, turned slightly towards him, and Mark says nothing, but it’s okay, because Yukhei keeps talking.

“I should have said something to you,” Yukhei is still speaking in those hushed tones. Only it’s not like he’s talking to himself now. It’s like he’s talking to Mark, just Mark, and he’s afraid the whole world might hear them. “But instead I was an idiot and I decided that I wanted to — to do something that would make you realize how bad you might want to be with me. Or just, I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking and that’s what makes this so goddamn _frustrating_. I guess I was just — I was mad at you for not using words when I didn’t use any either. And that wasn’t fair. And that doesn’t make what, what I did, it doesn’t make any better. But I’m sorry, Mark. For all of it.”

Mark is very quiet for a long time. He does not look at Yukhei. He looks forward, at the floor of his own bedroom, and tries to listen hard enough to hear his mom shuffling around downstairs. He’s desperate to find something to ground him, to remind himself he exists inside his own body, that he hasn’t imagined his life up to this point, that he hasn’t been asleep for years and doesn’t know when he’ll wake up.

Then Mark’s own body betrays him and he feels the hot tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. He turns his face away from Yukhei and shoves his hands into his sleeves, bringing them up to wipe furiously at his eyes with the hem.

“What the fuck,” Mark says and his voice is watery when he does.

Yukhei reaches out to touch Mark, then pulls back, still nervous, still not sure quite what is okay and what would be unwelcome. “God, fuck, I made you cry. I’m such an asshole. Please don’t cry, Mark.”

Mark sniffles. “You are so. What the fuck, Yukhei, I spent weeks just hoping you’d ask me — you’d ask me to be your fucking _boyfriend_ but you’re a numbskull, I guess.”

Mark’s words crash through the ceiling like a tonne of bricks and settle heavy in the air between him and Yukhei.

“Oh,” Yukhei makes a quiet noise from the back of his throat.

There are no more tears on Mark’s face when he turns to look at Yukhei but his eyes are still glistening and a little red. His chest still feels like it does after you bail particularly hard, and you know it’s worse than it looks, but you haven’t quite figured out how yet.

“Would you. Would you still want that, Mark?”

Mark leans against his arms, braced on his own knees, and furiously scrubs his palms over his eyes. He’s not going to fucking cry again. “I — I do, Yukhei but it’s more,” Mark sighs, “it’s more complicated than that, now, isn’t it?”

“I really hurt you.”

“You really hurt me,” Mark repeats. He allows himself to look at Yukhei from over his shoulder. The frown he wears screws up his whole face, folds up his eyebrows and downturns the corners of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Yukhei says again.

Mark straightens. “I won’t say it’s okay,” he tells Yukhei, “because it’s not but — but that doesn’t mean stuff between us has to be — had to be bad.”

They fall into silence once more. Mark suddenly feels more himself; feels more tethered to the things around him. Next to him, Yukhei is as warm and as gentle as a presence as he’s always been, and not even the clench in Mark’s heart at the thought of him can change that. The sun coming in through Mark’s bedroom window is that of a half-set one, all muted orange and shades of yellow mixed with pink. It backlights Yukhei, casting him in this hazy glow, and though he has always, always looked like something Mark might never be able to have, in this moment — in this moment he looks as close to something Mark might be allowed to keep as he ever has.

Mark wants to ask _will you kiss me?_ but he is so afraid of his voice and the way it might sound as it forms around those words. So he does not ask with words. Instead, he presses his and Yukhei’s thighs together, deliberate, and lets his hoodie fall out of his lap and into a heap on his floor. He circles two fingers around one of Yukhei’s wrists, pulls him forward gently, and then circles the palm of his other hand around the back of Yukhei’s neck.

And then he kisses him.

It is not the kind of kiss they’ve become accustomed to over the past few weeks. It’s more like the first kiss. No, more like what was technically their second kiss, but was the first one that cracked open Mark’s ribcage and pulled what felt like sunlight and ocean breeze and warmth from his chest. Closed mouth, soft and chaste. Mark opens his mouth a little underneath Yukhei’s, let’s out a sigh, and he can feel Yukhei’s tongue touch, fleetingly, at the swell of his bottom lip.

They kiss for a while. It never drifts into something too heated; it remains quietly intimate, both of them content to stay where they are, content to move their mouths slow and purposeful against the other’s.

Eventually, Mark’s mom knocks on their door and breaks them apart.

Mark is blushed red when his mom pokes her head in, says to them, “I’ve made enough dinner for the three of us,” and then leaves just as quickly as she arrived.

Mark looks down at the hand he has somehow interlocked with Yukhei’s. He threads and unthreads their fingers, knocking their knuckles together, dragging the tip of his index finger against Yukhei’s palm.

“You can stay,” he tells Yukhei, “to eat with us. If you want.”

Yukhei smiles.

“I’d really like that.”

It would be naive of them to think things might just be able to go back to normal after everything that happened. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because normal wasn’t the right way to do it in the first place.

At first, it’s easiest to let things bloom between them again with their friends around. They act as good buffers — they keep things from being too heavy. They let Mark and Yukhei do things like hold hands under the table when they get food, or sit with one of their legs thrown over the other’s at the skatepark. It’s easy to be what they were being perceived as around other people. It is uncomplicated. It is like slipping back into your made bed after a long, long day.

They take it slow, except for late at night, when they don’t. In Mark’s basement they allow themselves to remember the awareness that they have for each other’s bodies. They collect body heat between them. They count the way each of their fingers fits between the other’s ribs. Mark sits astride Yukhei’s hips and kisses him, open-mouthed and hot, and then kisses the cut line of his jaw, the long red column of his throat, the protruding bone of his clavicle.

They still don’t take it any further, but neither of them mind.

In the end, Mark spray paints the lion on the wall.

It’s not a direct recreation of the one inked into Yukhei’s side. More inspired by; it is the same muted colours as Yukhei’s, with occasional pops of colour where Mark thinks call for it. It ends up a big piece of two lions. A proud, upright mother lion and her cub, both of them staring outwards, not quite at whoever might be looking back at them, but something further. Something on the horizon. They both have matching eyes made of molten gold and they each wear black bands around one of their paws, painted by Mark to be barely noticeable. On the bands hang tiny little gold charms that match the colour of the lions eyes. _MOM_ , one of them says, and the other says _HONEY BEE_.

Summer comes to its inevitable close.

On Yukhei’s last day in California, Mark refuses to think about it. They spend the day much like any other: Yukhei wakes Mark with kisses peppered all over his face, until Mark laughs and pushes him so far away he falls off the edge of Mark’s bed. They go for brunch with their friends and Mark orders pancakes and when he gets syrup smeared all over his thumb and palm, Yukhei sneakily licks it off of him. They follow their friends to the skatepark, only Mark doesn’t really skate. He and Yukhei find an odd patch of grass and Mark stretches out in the sun with his head in Yukhei’s lap and lets Yukhei fumble his fingers through knots in Mark’s too-long hair.

They separate from the group after that. Mark takes Yukhei to the Boardwalk, for old times’ sake, except there aren’t old times at all. They are barely far enough away from Mark to be a memory. But still: he takes Yukhei to the Boardwalk. They share shaved ice again, and this time it’s pink and pale purple, and this time they also hold hands. Mark feels nostalgic for a time barely in the past. He wishes he could watch the summer pass him by again, start to finish — not to change anything, but just to see it one more time. Because Yukhei isn’t even gone yet, Yukhei is right here with him, and Mark already misses him.

In the end, it is simple:

Mark sits next to Yukhei on the sand of the beach and asks him, “do you want to be my boyfriend?”

And Yukhei smiles at Mark, skin bathed in the light of the fading sun, and he replies, “yes.”

When Mark kisses Yukhei he tastes like sickly-sweet shaved ice, the electrically charged air just before a thunderstorm. Like saltwater and sun rays and sunscreen. And like a million other things that Mark isn’t sure what they are yet, but he feels like he may one day find out, and he is excited to do so.

*

_**September.** _

Yukhei, for some reason, can never be wearing a shirt whenever Mark decides to Facetime him.

“Are you trying to frustrate me on purpose?” Mark asks him, “you know we don’t see each other until at least December.”

Yukhei hums. In California it is midnight and in New York it is 3 AM, so he must be tired. Mark heart warms at the thought that Yukhei answered his call anyway.

“How was work, honey bee?” Yukhei asks. His face is smashed into a pillow he has bunched up under his head.

“Good,” Mark replies. “I miss you.”

Yukhei sighs. “I miss you too,” he whines sleepily, “so much.”

“Hey, I wanted to tell you something.”

Yukhei, half-asleep with his eyes closed, opens them blearily. He shakes out his hair, repositioning himself on his pillow so he’s less at risk of falling asleep and paying better attention. He looks soft, and cute, and Mark is sure he would feel so nice to be lying next to right now.

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking,” Mark bites his lip. “I’m thinking of applying for graphic and visual design. Y’know, at NYU?”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Mark nods. “Obviously, I need to get in first. And it wouldn’t be until next September, that I would go. I’d need to work a bunch to save up money, too. But I talked to my mom and she thinks I should go. Plus, I already know some people out in New York.”

Yukhei smirks. “I think,” he drawls, “that that is a great idea, baby.”

**_The End._ **

**Author's Note:**

> in what is now somewhat of a tradition for this series: title from [the middle by jimmy eat world](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsxPW6i3pM). i've also made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3cuQMnWyjM0RS7AasGztlE?si=tsKz-DFSRTOWudretNVUUg) for this whole au, which features songs mentioned in both fics & also songs that just fit the vibe, bro, or i listened to a bunch while writing.
> 
> genuine question: what would you guys want to see from this au? i've got a couple of things on the back burner but i'm genuinely interested to know what people are most invested in. more johnyong and/or markhei? do i elaborate on the jaeten? feel free to leave anything in my [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/bloodbuzzed). 
> 
> i'm also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sIeepwellbeast).


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